Thursday, June 5, 2014

Repair OST File and Convert OST to PST

Repair OST File and Convert OST to PST

Microsoft Outlook consists of Offline Storage files (OST) to store data on a single file. Users can access the data files even if they are offline and not connected to the main server. OST file contains various information including email messages, journals, notes, contacts, calendar reminders, tasks, etc. A big problem arises when your OST file gets corrupted as it is prone to corruption. OST file can get damaged if Outlook application shuts down abruptly or if it crashes.

Other reasons for OST file getting corrupt are attacks from viruses or spyware, system failure, software and hardware malfunctioning and many others. The process to repair OST file gets difficult according to the level of corruption. Error messages may pop up while synchronizing OST file in Outlook, if Outlook is connected with mailbox on an Exchange executing server. Items from your OST file may be missing after synchronizing it with your mailbox.

OST Integrity Check Tool

Use OST Integrity Check tool (Scanost.exe) to check your OST file. This tool is used to determine and repair the issues related to synchronization of files. It scans damaged OST file and mailbox, compares and tries to restore the differences of synchronization. It doesn't change the mailbox. The scan log file also consists of information that the tool cannot repair. You can find scan log file in Deleted Items folder. To execute scanost.exe utility, you need to connect to your exchange account. Locate OST Integrity Check tool (scanost.exe) before executing it:

Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office_version

Steps to repair OST File by execute Scanost.exe:

Close MS Outlook application (if running)

Double click on Scanost.exe.

Tool will prompt for a profile according to your Outlook setting. Select the profile from the Profile Name list which consists of corrupted OST file.

Click on Connect (if prompted to select option from Work offline or Connect).

Scanpst.exe utility can also be used to repair OST file. But while using Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe), you have to make sure that it doesn't interact with Inbox folder which is running on the server integrated with Exchange Server. Third manual solution is to disable the corrupted OST file and create a new file.

These are the exact manual solutions which can repair OST file of Outlook that is corrupted. As I have already stated difficulties in repairing depends up on the level of corruption. If your OST file is severely corrupted, then these solutions might not work. If you are unable to repair OST file manually, then you can use third party recovery program. OST File Recovery program from SysInfoTools is the reliable program to recover data from corrupted Outlook file. It scans the file and recovers data. You can then save the recovered data in different file formats including MSG, PST, MBOX, DBX, EML and Archive.To get more details, you can visit the SysInfoTools’ website and download free trial version.